


The Beast That Shouted LOVE At The Heart Of The World

by inverts



Series: At The Bottom Of A Wishing Well Was A Secret That We Dare Not Speak Out Loud [7]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone is awful, Fighting, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Second Person, Referenced past character death, Species Swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 17:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8456134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inverts/pseuds/inverts
Summary: “It’s been a while since you’ve been hom—since you’ve been here,” Chara comments, wrestling their voice back to nonchalant after their slip-up. Frisk makes a humming noise in response; you suppose it must be an affirmative. Chara’s next words are so quiet, you wonder if you’ve heard them correctly, when they ask, “Do you miss it?”“Yeah,” Frisk answers.--The fallen human Asriel comes to learn who his friends really are.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter gets a little.... murder-y.
> 
> However, if you want (or need) to meta-game,  
>  **SPOILERS:** know that I tag my fics accurately. If a tag is there, it will happen; if a tag is not there, it's not going to happen.
> 
> Also, regretfully, the next part will not be up for a couple of weeks at least, even though I blasted through writing this one. Schedules! What're you gonna do.

The three of you arrive at the MTT Resort in a rush, hurrying through the automatic doors as if Undyne is already hot on your heels, though Chara reassures you that she would have to take the same elevator, and there’s no way she could possibly have caught up already. Darting through the lobby, once more you’re all greeted with cheerful waves and happy hellos. Frisk and Chara wave back with their free hands, both of them still tugging you along, but they don’t slow down as they pass the fountain and head under a wide archway at the far end of the lobby.

Another set of smooth elevator doors wait for you there, but before you even reach the panel of buttons to summon the next lift, the doors slide open. The two monsters who step out into the lobby stop when their eyes land on you, and both let out joyful yells.

“Oh my god, Bratty! It’s their highnesses!”

The purple furred, cat-like monster holds their hands up to their mouth, hopping from foot to foot in excitement. Next to them, the other monster, tall and resembling an alligator—or a crocodile?—also exclaims, “Catty! It’s their highnesses!” Both monsters are overtaken by excited giggles, then, and the alligator monster—was it Bratty?—continues, “Like, is Mettaton still with you?”

“The special effects for the battle damage were sooooo good!” the cat-monster—Catty?—adds. Their eyes are practically sparkling. You definitely aren’t going to correct their misconception.

“Mettaton is, regrettably, still occupied,” Chara says, trying to sidestep the excited pair of monsters and get you to the elevator behind them. “We also have urgent business to attend to, so—”

“Wanna help?” Frisk interjects. Chara stops mid-step, turning an aghast look on Frisk, but they only smile up at the cat and crocodile monsters.

“Oh my god!” Catty shrieks. “We totally wanna help!”

At the same time, the other monster nods, blond curls bobbing with the motion. “We’re, like, totally hype for helping you guys!”

Frisk beckons the two of them to lean close, and lowers their voice. The two monsters listen with rapt attention as Frisk tells them, “Alphys is following us. Undyne too. Don’t want them interrupting us.”

The cat and crocodile’s eyes widen, and they exchange a look. 

“Say no more,” Bratty says, straightening. “You can, like, totally count on us to distract them!”

“Besides, like, we haven’t gotten to hang with Alphys in ages!” Catty adds. “We won’t let her get past us!”

“Thank you,” Frisk says, warmth in their tone, and Catty preens while Bratty flutters their eyelashes. As Chara pulls you toward the elevator once more, Frisk calls out, “Counting on you!” 

The two monsters salute as you board the elevator. The serious front lasts hardly a moment; by the time the elevator doors close, they’ve started squealing at each other again. You wonder if you can actually trust them to help, but when you think about it, you figure it doesn’t really matter if they help or not. Dr. Alphys already knows where you’re headed, so it’s not like Bratty and Catty can spill the beans and make things worse.

Chara punches the very top button in the elevator panel, and then leans back against the wall, their eyes raised to the digital numeric display above the doors. Frisk stands next to you, swaying slightly back and forth. 

“Everyone really loves you guys, huh,” you observe. It’s different, being around people who are greeted with such genuine friendliness everywhere you go. At home, people you’ve never met before will act excited to see you when it’s you and your mom and dad all together, and at first you’d thought it similar—your dad’s not a prince or anything, but being the mayor is still a pretty big thing, and everyone always wants to see what he’s doing or ask him what he thinks. But it’s not the same, here—the monsters are simply  _ happy _ to see Frisk and Chara. They’re not waiting to see the young heirs slip up, or press them for answers on policies or current events. They’re not judging Chara and Frisk for their religion, or how they dress, or how they fail to meet some other many undefined and vague standards. 

“We’re going to set them free,” Chara says, shrugging. “Of course they’re going to be happy to see us.”

Is that really what it is? Simply expectations after all? You look to Frisk, but they don’t have anything to say. 

The elevator ride drags on, and you join Chara in watching the numbers of the display go up. You don’t know what number you’re waiting for, but it beats watching Frisk do nothing, or risking upsetting Chara. Maybe you can actually make it all the way to the barrier without getting anyone mad. There’s a thought.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been hom—since you’ve been here,” Chara comments, wrestling their voice back to nonchalant after their slip-up. Frisk makes a humming noise in response; you suppose it must be an affirmative. Alphys’s lab reports had said that Frisk didn’t always live in the ruins, but you hadn’t thought about where they’d lived before.

Chara’s next words are so quiet, you wonder if you’ve heard them correctly, when they ask, “Do you miss it?”

“Yeah,” Frisk answers.

With a ding, the elevator doors open. 

The three of you step out onto a neat stone pathway. To either side, little rock walls stand at about chest height; over them, you can see out into a vast cavern, populated with small houses. Chara and Frisk don’t stop to take in the view, but they don’t rush out at a run, either, and so you have time, as the three of you walk down the path, to look around. How many homes are overlooked by this castle walkway? How many monsters must live here? You’re struck by the realization that you’ve really only seen a tiny portion of the inside of Mt. Ebott. There are so many more monsters than those few you’ve met in your brief journey through the underground—there are so many homes out there, so many families who can never leave this mountain.

“Welcome to the capital,” Chara offers, quietly.

The walkway leads you to an enormous structure, built into the cavern wall itself, so that you almost can’t tell where the architecture ends and the natural rock formations begin. You tilt your head back, and you recognize towers in a familiar arrangement. This is it: the castle you’d been able to see all the way from the marsh.

This is where Chara lives, they’d told you.

“I grew up here,” they say, as if following along with your thoughts. The three of you reach the large, wide doors, and you’re reminded of the ruined castle where Frisk lives. This, you think, must be what that old building had looked like in its prime, tall and imposing, strong stone walls, a fortified bastion fit for royalty. “When we were kids, my parents and I lived in the wing on the west side.”

They inhale, putting a hand on the door, but they hesitate in pushing it open.

“Mom and I lived in the east wing,” Frisk says. They raise their own hand to the door opposite Chara’s, and in perfect synchronization, the two monsters lean their weight forward. Before you, the doors swing open.

You were expecting an opulent display—chandeliers, expensive rugs, fancy gold-rimmed vases, the works. Instead, the room that greets you looks almost like a room from your own house. There are little end tables with lamps in the corners, and some books have been left out on one of them. The wallpaper is plain, a warm shade of golden yellow. A wide stairway leads down to a basement, and above it on the far wall hangs a large picture frame. Something in your chest constricts when your eyes focus on the photo. 

Two small, white-furred monsters smile out at the viewer from the bottom center. They don’t have horns, but Chara’s big eyes and Frisk’s squint are instantly recognizable. Behind them, three taller monsters stand. None of them resemble Frisk or Chara at all. The one with a hand on Frisk’s shoulder is bright and colourful, with rainbow feathers and a stubby, wide beak, and their three eyes all curve fondly as they smile down at Frisk. Next to them, one of the two monsters standing behind Chara wears shiny metal armour, that winged-circle-and-triangles rune bold on their chestplate. Their grin is strong and challenging; you have a hunch as to who they were. The third monster hovers, ghost-like and shadowy, their anatomy formless and incomparable to a human’s, but one tendril extends their transparent fingers to rest on Chara’s shoulder.

“Welcome to my home,” Chara says, facing you. Their voice has gone flat with formality. “May I offer you a drink, or something to eat?”

You get the feeling they're simply being polite for politeness’s sake, but the moment they bring it up, your throat reminds you that you’ve had nothing to drink since prior to Mettaton kidnapping you. Your throat is painfully dry. “Water would be nice,” you say.

They nod. “This way, then,” they say, turning to your left. You pass through a cozy room with a sofa and a fireplace, though it's not lit, and wind up in a small kitchen. There are dirty dishes in the sink, and boxes of dry foods like cereal and rice have been left out on the counters. Already on their toes, Chara has to stretch their arm as high as they can to get a cup out of the cabinets, and they let go of your hand to fill it at the sink.

“You live here all by yourself?” you ask, as they hand you the cup. 

“I'm fine on my own,” they say, smiling. “My parents died a few years ago, but I haven't needed them for a long time.”

Next to you, Frisk tugs at their ear. You sip at your cup and don’t look at either of them as you drink.

“My mother was captain of the Royal Guard,” Chara continues. You see, out of the corner of your eye, that they’re leaning with their back against the counter; they stare out toward the room you entered through as they talk. “You recall the lab reports which mentioned surrogate parents? My mother was almost certainly the one who said any sacrifice would be worth ensuring humanity’s destruction.” They look at you then, as if waiting for a reaction; you stare at your cup and don’t say a word. 

Silence falls in the little kitchen. Though you try to stall, you finish your water, and Chara takes the cup from you, tossing it into the sink with the other dishes. You wince at the clatter. They reach for your hand again, and, saying nothing, lead you back the way you came.

Their back is to you when they speak again, as you walk through the room with the fireplace. “My father, too, was set on raising me to be a ruler who could lead us back to the surface and crush humanity. For my parents, the war between monsters and humans never ended; it was only put on hold. I would be their tool to finally achieve victory.”

Your mouth opens, to ask if Chara’s parents ever changed their mind, but your voice sticks in your throat before it can reach your tongue. Is that a question you want to know the answer to? Surely Chara didn’t agree, at least—maybe they’re not your friend, but they’ve still guided and protected you this far. They’ve saved you from danger. You know them, by now—you don’t have to worry like this. They definitely don’t want to see you hurt. But fear traps your voice, and you follow silently. You enter the room with the stairs, and Chara leads you past them, into the hall opposite. Here, like in Frisk’s ruined castle, there are doors to the left; Chara pushes open the very first one. 

“With their guidance, I realized the purpose of my birth,” they say, dropping your hand once they’ve lead you past the threshold. They walk further into the room, and you stay at the door, looking around. It appears to be a bedroom, but an unused one—there’s a layer of dust over nearly everything, so thick you can’t help but think of confectioner’s sugar on a funnel cake. The only exception is a path that appears to have been swept from the door to the bed, and the bedsheets themselves. “Power,” Chara says, their back to you. “To fulfill the prophecy, I had to become strong. Stronger than other monsters. Stronger than humans.” They inhale, shaky. “Stronger than Frisk.”

“Chara,” Frisk says, and you look over your shoulder at them. Their voice is strained, small and stretched, like a rubber band pulled too far. Their mouth hangs open, and their fingers tighten their grip on yours.

There’s laughter in front of you; you jerk your head back to see Chara, now facing you and Frisk. Their head is bowed, their arms wrapped around themself, their claws digging into their sleeves. “Nothing I did was ever enough for them,” they say. “If I wasn’t even a match for Frisk, how was I going to be able to kill a human?” Harsh snickering escapes them, their shoulders shaking violently. “I tried  _ so hard._” Their voice comes out in an agonized keen, before they giggle again. “And then…”

They raise their head, manic smile and wide eyes freezing you in place. 

“I did it,” they say. They straighten, their laughter falling away like shedding a skin. They let go of their arms, spreading their hands wide. “I was finally stronger than they were.”

Frisk makes a choked sound, and your fingers fall from theirs. “Your parents,” they whisper, swinging their head from side to side, looking at the dusty room with their mouth open, aghast. 

“I just wanted them to be proud of me!” Chara wails. Their eyes are wet, their brows drawn up in despair, but their smile remains, as though they don’t know how to get rid of it. They twist their hands palm up, and golden fire bursts to life. 

Frisk shoves you aside, and you yelp as you land hard on the wooden floor, dust flying up around you. When you raise your head, though, you see Frisk standing where you were, their arms held up to shield their face, bracing themself under an onslaught of molten gold. Little tongues of silver flames spark out under Chara’s hail of magic, and Frisk grits their teeth. You back away, scooting clumsily across the floor until your back hits a wall, not caring how stupid you look. Chara shouts over the crackling roar of fire, a wordless yell of rage, and Frisk’s legs buckle. They’re forced a step back, that gold torrent of flame so bright your eyes hurt to look at it, and you bring your own arms up, crossed over your head.

“Stop! Please!” you cry, shutting your eyes tight and bringing your knees up. 

“I’m going to save everyone!” Chara yells. Even through your closed eyes, you see bright flares of orange and yellow sunbursts; you feel the heat against your arms, and you curl up tighter. “I’m going to break the barrier!” Their voice scrapes raw through their throat and down your spine, and you find your own terrified whine joining the cacophony. “I’ll be the one to lead us back to the surface!”

The roar of the fire fills your ears, and you might be screaming, but there’s no way to know. You can’t hear anything but that terrible, consuming noise, the all-encompassing crackle of flame.

Slowly, the light and heat die down. Your ears still echo with a harsh, thrumming sound, even as you become aware of your own whimpering and, once you quiet yourself, someone else’s heavy breaths. Your arms are trembling when you lower them, and you peek over your sleeves, looking first to where Frisk was. 

You almost expect not to find them, blown away under Chara’s assault—for a moment you fear it might be worse if you  _ do _ find them there, burnt and suffering the effects of the attack—but no. There they are, seemingly unharmed. Their tunic is singed at the edges, and a few wisps of smoke trail up from the dark, charred spots on the hems. But otherwise, they appear fine. They’re standing at ease, relaxed, their hands resting at their sides. They stare forward, and though your neck hurts with tension, you turn your head to look in the direction of their focus.

Chara is slumped over, panting heavily. They’re still on their feet, but their legs are unsteady, and as you watch, they stumble to the side and have to catch their balance. Small sparks of gold drip from their fingertips, but no more flames coalesce in their hands. Their smile has dropped, although their mouth still attempts to pull up at the corners; the result is more of a grimace. 

“Chara,” says Frisk, taking a step forward. Chara’s panting comes to a stop as they clench their teeth and growl at Frisk, who ceases their advance, still a few paces away. “You can’t win.”

Forcing themself to stand straight, Chara raises their hands again.Their fingers spit weak tongues of flame. It’s nothing like the massive hail of fire they threw at Frisk before. “I  _ can _ beat you,” they snarl. “I will!”

“You won’t. Never have. Can’t now,” Frisk tells them, without emotion. “Because despite everything, you don’t hate me. But I...”

Frisk darts forward, and you scream.

For a moment, nobody moves, and for those brief seconds, you can pretend that Frisk missed, that their claws didn’t connect, that Chara was able to pull back in time. Then, your breath runs out, your scream dissolving in the air and leaving a vacuum behind. As if waiting for that cue, Chara falls, and their knees hit the hardwood floor with a dull thump. They remain kneeling there, eyes wide with disbelief as they stare up at Frisk. A deep gash crosses their left cheek; three more long tears reach across their tunic from shoulder to hip. 

There’s dust on Frisk’s claws. It trickles from Chara’s wounds, shimmering particles that spill over the ripped fabric of their tunic. You jerk your head down, horrified, to see the dust coating your hands and robe and shoes from where you fell and scrambled across the floor. 

‘She’s dust, same as mine,’ comes Chara’s voice in your memories. 

‘Even boss monsters can die,’ Frisk had said, not even an hour ago.

“You…” Chara’s voice is small. Even in the basement of Alphys’s lab, they didn’t sound like this. “You really hate me that much?”

“You were the only one in this world who could understand me,” Frisk says, looking down at Chara. There’s nothing snide in their voice, but there’s no sympathy, either. “You were my best friend.” Chara reaches up, touching the gash on their face; their paw pads are coated with dust when they take their hand away. Even from where you are, you can see them start to shake. “Didn’t know what I’d done wrong. You said I’d never really understood anything, I was in your way. What was I supposed to think?” Frisk’s voice remains devoid of inflection or emotion, like someone reading a script without understanding the feelings that should be put behind the words. “Nothing I did made you happy anymore. Stopped trying to compete with you—let you say whatever you wanted to me—went to the ruins, let you have the whole castle—nothing worked. Hurt more.”

They cup their hands in front of their chest, and a silver fireball rolls into existence. Chara watches them, that frozen smile stretched across their face. 

“Know why you did it, now. Still hurts,” Frisk says. The flame before them grows in size, bigger than a baseball, a basketball, a watermelon, as they spread their hands apart. “Your parents died, but you stayed the same.”

“You know it wasn’t only my parents,” Chara whispers. “Everyone’s waiting to see which one of us can make their hopes and dreams come true. Everyone’s counting on us. I couldn’t back down.” They blink, and you can see tears start to spill over, wet tracks in their fur. “By then—I had already been so cruel to you. How could I expect to go back to how things were before? I thought you must hate me.”

“Yeah,” Frisk says. “I do.”

Fire spills from Frisk’s hands and pours forward, a silver tidal wave of flame flooding toward Chara. If they yell, you don’t hear it—but maybe that’s because you’re screaming again.

The room in front of Frisk burns, everything consumed by silver. The dresser, the bed, Chara—you can’t see anything through the wall of fire. Frisk spends hardly a second watching the flames, and then they turn and grab your wrist, yanking you to your feet. You draw breath for another scream, and you choke on the smoke in the air. Dust flies through the room, and you manage to find the breath to shriek after all when you feel it sticking to your wet cheeks. Frisk pulls you by the wrist, and on weak legs, you try to stand your ground. They easily tug you out of the room and into the hall. You stumble behind them to the stairs, still wailing, and you trip down over the first one; Frisk catches you before you can fall, but their hands have lost whatever gentleness they had before, digging their claws into your arms as they drag you along.

It’s not until you’ve descended the stairs and started stumbling through the long hall at the bottom of them that you manage to put words to your cries. “Let me go!” you shout, and Frisk doesn’t so much as turn to look at you, marching determinedly on. You try to twist your wrist out of their hold; you use your other hand to try to pry their fingers loose, and they yank you forward, pulling you off balance. “Stop! Let  _ go_,” you plead, fresh tears falling down your face. Fine, powdery dust stands out starkly against the dark fabric of your robe, and you shudder, sobbing. You can’t get your feet to move properly under you, tripping over your own ankles and the hem of your robe; Frisk yanks you back up again, still not looking at you.

“A long time ago, humans and monsters lived together,” They say, as you stumble after them. You want to shout that you already know this, but all you manage is an agonized whine. Frisk’s voice is flat as they continue to recite the history they told you before. “But then, the humans attacked us. Frightened of our magic, they started a war.”

It hasn’t even been a day since you first met them and Chara—since the two of them together told you how monsters came to live beneath Mt. Ebott. “Please,” you whisper, your head bowed. You don’t even know what you’re begging for—it’s not like you can go back in time and fix things. 

It’s not like you can bring Chara back to life.

“They sealed us underground with a magic barrier,” Frisk says, “and they cursed our king and queen.” Spoken loud and steady, it’s easy to hear the story even over your cries. “Boss monsters are the most powerful. Strongest souls. We can live forever.” At this, one of your sobs twists into a bark of laughter. Chara won’t live forever. Chara can’t laugh at the irony of Frisk’s words. Chara can’t laugh at anything else ever again. “When we grow up, stop aging til we have children. Pass on the power of our soul to them. Then we grow old.

“Humans knew this. Cursed the royal family: ‘You will not live to see your offspring.’

“The king and queen had no children, but they started to age,” they tell you. “Couldn’t have kids. Tried for so long to break the curse. Years and years. Centuries.” They shake their head, ears flapping. “Finally found a way around it—had other monsters be our parents. Monsters who knew we’d leach at their souls as we grew. Knew having us would kill them.” You remember the lab reports. The monsters who would raise the underground’s hopes and dreams… it’s no wonder. “My mom fell down because I was alive.”

Do they expect your sympathy? After what they did to the only other person who could understand how they feel? 

Whatever they hope to get out of telling you this, they don’t wait for your response, as they continue. “Grew up together. But we were never allowed to see the queen and king. Still a chance the curse wasn’t fully broken.” 

Another sob tears out of you; now Chara never  _ will _ see the king or queen. They’ll never get to listen to the rest of those tapes in Alphys’s lab. They’ll never know why the queen and king, knowing that the stupid prophecy spoke of only one child, decided to have two.

“Now,” Frisk says, stopping before a closed door. You haven’t been paying attention at all to where you’ve gone, turning corners without seeing them, only barely managing to put one foot in front of the other while you cry. You have no idea where you are, but what does it matter? Chara’s dead, and you’re going back home, and you can’t do anything. You’re just as powerless and worthless here as at home. No—you’re even more useless here. At least at home, you never let anybody die. You almost don't hear Frisk, as they continue, “Now we have reached the absolute. I will inherit the power of the queen and king, and I will bring monsters back to the surface.”

And Chara won’t get to see the surface, or the sun, or the stars or the moon. You’re overtaken by a wave of new tears, and your legs give out. Frisk catches you, yet again, and you find yourself leaning on them as you sob. You try to push away, not caring if you wind up on the floor for it, but they wrap one arm around your back, and they’re warm and solid and steady, and you shove your face into their shoulder and you wail.

“You killed them,” you cry, finally admitting it out loud, your chest heaving. Having said it, anger wells up in you, as hot as your tears. “You killed them!”

“I’m sorry,” says Frisk, with the same level voice they’ve been using to tell you about the curse.

“You’re not!” you scream, muffled into their tunic. “You didn’t have to! You’d already won! You could have left them there!”

“They were trying to kill you,” Frisk says. “Thought you’d be happy.”

You shake your head, not even caring that the motion pushes your sore nose into their shoulder, and you cry. You might sob Chara's name. You definitely whisper, “I hate you.”

“Good. It‘ll help you,” is their cryptic reply. “Come on,” they say, then, patting your back. Your skin crawls under their touch, a shiver rippling down your spine. “Almost there. Through the last corridor, and then the throne room.”

You swallow down your next sob, and when Frisk leads you through the door, you follow.

The corridor you enter is lit with golden light, and you bite the inside of your cheek. Your vision blurs, but you don’t care that you can’t fully make out your surroundings. You can tell there are windows and heavy stone pillars and a tiled floor, and none of that is of any interest to you. The bright light spilling in through the windows casts Frisk in harsh shadows, and the pillars, too, block out dark, heavy stripes across the floor. Your eyes squeeze out yet more tears. You’re not sure you’ll ever stop.

You weren’t supposed to get involved. None of this was supposed to be your problem. You hardly knew them, and they tried to kill you. Maybe Frisk is right—maybe you should just be thankful to be alive. You sniff, loud and painful, and your chin aches and your lip wobbles.

From behind one of the pillars, a shadow moves, and Frisk comes to a halt. You stumble into their back, and you stare, wide-eyed, at the silhouette that steps out. They’re your height, and Chara’s name is on the tip of your tongue—your mind races to supply you with hopes of them springing out, surprise, it was just a prank! Everything’s fine, Asriel, you big crybaby! Way to overreact!

The shape of the figure in front of you is all wrong. Their height might be right, but the rest of them is the wrong shape, their head smooth and earless. There are no nubby horns jutting up. Their legs are shaped like your own. When they emerge into the light, they reveal smooth bone and dark eye sockets like Papyrus. Their stance is casual, their hands in the pockets of their blue hoodie, their fuzzy slippers and basketball shorts incongruous with the elegance of the corridor. 

“Hey, your highness,” the skeleton greets. Their voice is deep, with a nonchalance that matches the rest of them. Do they not see the dust on your clothes or the tears on your face? Do they not realize something terrible has happened? 

Do they realize, and just not care?

“Just you today, huh?” they ask. “Where’s your partner in crime?”

You can’t stop the sob that comes rolling out of you; you cover your mouth with your free hand and manage to quiet yourself down to a high pitched whimper, instead of bawling. 

“Just me,” is all Frisk says.

“So,” that deep voice comments. “This is the choice you made. This is what all of our actions have come to.” That’s all they have to say? Chara’s  _ dead, _ and that’s all the reaction this monster can muster up? The lights in the skeleton’s eye sockets travel over you, meeting your baleful, teary glare, and then they return to Frisk. Unbothered, they continue, “In a few moments, you’ll reach the barrier. There, you will determine the future of this world.”

The barrier, past the throne room… 

The future of this world?

“The king and queen know I’m here?” Frisk asks. Their voice wavers, and you squeeze your eyes shut. “Did you tell them? Do they know what I…”

“Hey. Before all that, I’ve got some questions for ya, kiddo,” the skeleton says, instead of answering Frisk. “Here’s one: how much do you think you can hurt someone before they won’t forgive you anymore?”

You clench your fist in the fabric of your robe. You won’t forgive them, no matter what. 

The skeleton waits, but Frisk makes no audible reply. You open your eyes to see Frisk look away, and you hear the skeleton chuckle. It’s a low, pleasant sound. How can they laugh so casually when they know Chara’s gone? “Okay,” they say. “Maybe this is a better question: can  _ you _ forgive the people who’ve hurt you?”

You hear Frisk’s sharp inhale, but that’s all.

“Now,” the skeleton says, “what will you do?”

This time, Frisk doesn’t hesitate before answering. “Lead monsters to the surface.” Their quiet voice seems to echo in the corridor, the simple sentences spoken with unshakable determination. “Make everyone happy.”

“Yeah. I expected as much.” The skeleton’s eye sockets close, and they ask, “Is that really worth the sacrifices you’re making?”

“I—”

“No,” the skeleton cuts them off. “It doesn’t matter, what you have to say.” Oppressive silence fills the hallway, and Frisk fidgets. Their claws scrape once on the tile, before they go still. You’re still shivering, and your tears haven’t fully stopped yet, but you’re able to breathe in without sobbing.

The skeleton’s stare pins you in place, as they watch you. Maybe they’re waiting for some sign that Frisk is giving the question actual thought, or maybe they just want to see the two of you squirm. If Frisk really is able to set monsters free—if everyone living in the capital, and that snowy town, and everywhere in between, is able to leave this underground prison and see the sky again—is the happiness of all those other monsters more important than Chara?

You squeeze your eyes shut and shake your head. Your hair sticks to your wet cheeks, and you sniff. 

Chara had said you weren’t friends. They shouldn’t mean anything more to you than any of the other many monsters living in the mountain. Clearly  _ you _ didn’t mean anything to  _ them_, after all. It’s simple numbers; just one person  _ can’t _ be more important. 

If the choice had been yours, what would you have done?

Your eyes are still shut as you fail to wrestle your tears to a stop, so you don’t know if the skeleton’s expression changes; you only hear it when they decide to speak again. “What’s important is that you’re honest with yourself. So long as you do what’s in your heart… I believe you can still do the right thing.” 

“The right thing is to make everyone happy,” Frisk says, without a moment’s pause.

“Welp,” says the skeleton. “What happens now… guess I’ve got no choice but to leave it up to you. We’re all counting on you, kid.”

That’s the problem. Adults washing their hands of it and leaving everything on Frisk and Chara’s shoulders—now one of them is  _ dead _ because of how  _ stupid _ everyone is for relying on some stupid prophecy, instead of actually doing something to help! You wipe your eyes with the back of your wrist, and, unsurprisingly, it doesn’t do anything to help. When you raise your head to frown at the skeleton and tell them exactly how useless their advice is, though, you find that you and Frisk are the only ones in the corridor.

“Where did they—” you start, spinning in place, but the way you came is deserted as well. 

“Sans does that,” Frisk says. “Knows a lot of shortcuts.” They inhale, deep and slow. If they feel any regret at all, it doesn’t show on their face or in their voice. “He’s the eyes for the queen and king,” they say, still looking straight ahead. “The only one who ever sees them. Tells them what’s happening. Tells everyone else what they decide.” 

They take another breath, and then they start walking. You give a halfhearted tug on at your arm, but Frisk’s grip remains strong, and you drop your gaze to stare at your feet as you start to follow behind them. What else can you do? Run back into the rest of the underground? Get made fun of by Undyne? Cry to Papyrus, and tell him that his favourite boss monster is a murderer? 

“When Chara and I were kids,” Frisk whispers, and you have to strain to hear them. “We asked Sans to tell us what the king and queen thought of us. We wrote letters and asked him to deliver them.”

You reach the end of the corridor. Frisk marches through the door, and you almost don’t hear when they say, “They never replied.”

The two of you step over the threshold, and Frisk at last lets go of you. You linger at the doorway as they walk forward with slow, nervous steps, toward two old and dusty thrones in the center of the room. The upholstery is dull, bleached of colour by the sunlight that filters in through the ceiling above you. Once, it might have been the same rich indigo as the robes you’re still wearing; now it’s faded to a sort of lilac-grey more than anything else, and the seats of the chairs look nearly white. Embroidered onto the backs of the thrones, you can see that same rune, a circle with wings and three triangles below. 

Other than the thrones, and six glass jars set on the floor around them, three to either side, the room is empty, void of furnishings. It has that look specific to homes that haven’t been lived in for a long while, where nothing has been touched or moved for years. There are no cobwebs in the corners, but there is an accumulation of dust and other little debris, fur and dead bugs and who knows what else. The floor is crossed through with dark lines where dirt has stained the cracks and spaces between the tiles. Paint, or maybe paper, peels from the walls, which you’re certain were once a warm gold colour to match the corridor you just passed through. 

Your eye returns to the six glass jars set on the floor around the throne. Suspended inside each, glowing magic in the shape of a cartoonish heart hovers, pulsing with light. Each one is a different colour, though you think that the full spectrum is missing. Next to Frisk’s blue tunic, the little magic hearts are the brightest things in the room, but the jars, too, are fogged with age, the lids bearing a dusty coat.

“Your majesties,” Frisk calls out. There’s no response, and you know, with an abrupt surety, that nobody will come. “I’m here,” they try again, taking a few more shaky, tentative steps forward. They reach the thrones and seem to trip forward, catching themself on one cushioned seat. Dragging their claws down the arm of the gilded chair, they let themself sink to the floor, and come to a rest sitting at the foot of it, still hanging on as though the furniture is all that keeps them from falling over.

The room is covered in dust. The thrones, especially—what you had taken for fading in the cushions reveals itself, as you step closer, to be a thick coating of fine, shimmering particles. 

“It didn’t break,” Frisk says, their voice quaking. “It didn’t break,” they repeat. “What am I supposed to do?”

You laugh, abruptly; you slap your hands over your mouth to stifle the sound, but it’s too late. Frisk twists their torso so they can face you, their brows drawn up in distress, their teeth digging into their lip. “So much for the prophecy,” you can’t help but blurt through your fingers. “It was wrong all along, and now Chara’s dead for nothing!” You wonder if Chara would appreciate how you, now, can’t stop yourself from giggling, overtaken in gallow’s laughter. You’ll never know.

“No,” says Frisk. They rise to their feet, wobbling before they manage to stand steady. Your laughter dies in your throat at the sight of their face. “I can at least do one thing right,” they vow, voice low. Then they stride toward you, purposeful, and you’re only able to take one step backward before they’ve reached you. This close, you can see their dark pupils and irises peeking out from their lowered eyelids. Their breath comes shallow and quick, panicked, and your heartbeat pounds in your chest. “Asriel,” they say, and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

You shake your head. You want to believe that they mean getting you home is the one thing they can do right. You don’t want to admit that you’ve been wrong all along. You want your mom and dad, you want to go home, and you want Chara back. More than anything, you want none of this to have ever happened. 

“If there was something you could do to help take down the barrier, you’d do it, right?” Frisk asks, pressing forward. “Told us to let you know if you could help. You meant it, right?”

You can’t bring yourself to answer. ‘Don’t agree to something before you’ve heard all the terms,’ your mom’s warned you and Dad both. ‘People will take advantage.’

Frisk raises a hand, setting it palm flat on your chest before you can twist away. Their claws clink on the metal star brooch of your cape; their fingers obscure the rune embroidered on the robe. As quickly as they brought their hand to your chest, they pull it back, and you feel like you’re on a bumpy elevator, or a plane, or a roller coaster, only instead of your stomach getting wobbly and weird, something in your chest is in the wrong place. Following Frisk’s hand as though on a string, a little, red, cartoony heart emerges from you. It pulses in time to your rapid heartbeat, and Frisk carefully cups their hands around it. They stare, seemingly enthralled, as it hovers between the two of you, bobbing gently above their curled fingers, and your breath catches in your throat. 

A sense of wrongness creeps into you, scratching at the inside of your spine, tingling in the tips of your fingers, pulsing in your neck. This shouldn’t be happening. Whatever magic has called that little heart out of you, it needs to stop.

“This is your soul,” says Frisk. “The very culmination of your being.”

They raise their head, and smile softly at you.

“I need it.”


End file.
